Last week end storms in Pwllheli Marina

[Heckler]

Saturday night started to rain and blow a little bit, a good meal and some drinkypoos made us fall asleep pretty quickly. Was aware that it started raining and blowing heavier thru the night and that Sacha was starting to move about a bit (Pwllheli marina) the early morning pee turned in to a first light check, wind SE about 26 knts. back to beddy bies for a few more hours. Got up at 9ish and egg and bacon on. Finished that when all hell broke loose, Sacha went from relatively gentle leaning to the right to full on lean to the left with the sound of banshees coming from the surrounding masts! I shot up to the cockpit to see 48 knts being indicated with the wind now coming from the north west up our chuff. It had literally changed from SE mid twenties to nearly 50 NW in the matter of a minute.
Can anyone explain simplistically the mechanics of the rotating air masses and which way they were moving to produce this effect?
Stu

 

[Bilgediver]

Saturday night started to rain and blow a little bit, a good meal and some drinkypoos made us fall asleep pretty quickly. Was aware that it started raining and blowing heavier thru the night and that Sacha was starting to move about a bit (Pwllheli marina) the early morning pee turned in to a first light check, wind SE about 26 knts. back to beddy bies for a few more hours. Got up at 9ish and egg and bacon on. Finished that when all hell broke loose, Sacha went from relatively gentle leaning to the right to full on lean to the left with the sound of banshees coming from the surrounding masts! I shot up to the cockpit to see 48 knts being indicated with the wind now coming from the north west up our chuff. It had literally changed from SE mid twenties to nearly 50 NW in the matter of a minute.
Can anyone explain simplistically the mechanics of the rotating air masses and which way they were moving to produce this effect?
Stu

On the inside edge of the eye of the storm with the north west quadrant having tighter isobars??

 

[Ubergeekian]

Can anyone explain simplistically the mechanics of the rotating air masses and which way they were moving to produce this effect?

The models we know and love of highs, lows and the swirling air around them are for a large scale. There can be lots of smaller scale effects as well: just as there can be gusts or lulls on top of the macro wind, there can be small vortices as well.

In other words, what you experienced was a much smaller scale effect than the traditional "rotating air mass" models.